Veteran TV reporter diagnoses 'Bad News'

We've been ignoring the big stories while we drown in the fluff.

Former CBS reporter Tom Fenton diagnoses television news in his new book, "Bad News," and the prognosis is not good.

Fenton, who retired from the network last year, argues that the news media failed America grievously in the months leading up to Sept. 11, 2001. Reporters in the field were very much aware of Osama bin Laden's threat, and tried to get the word out. But they were rebuffed by editors and producers who regarded foreign news as "boring" and "bad for ratings."

Some reports about bin Laden and al-Qaida did make the evening news. But they were drowned out by endless fluff about O.J. Simpson, Monica Lewinsky and Princess Diana.

Fenton blames much of the problem on the corporate takeover of the media. When companies like Disney and GE bought up networks, they expected news to turn a profit, just like a theme park or an entertainment program. Things have changed quite a bit since the golden age of CBS (the '50s, '60s and '70s), when founder William Paley told his correspondents: "You guys just worry about the news. I've got Jack Benny to take care of profits."

In that era, TV news operated at a loss and was subsidized by entertainment programming. This enabled the networks to set up bureaus all over the world. Most of those bureaus have gone dark over the last 15 years.

The result is that Americans are much less informed about the world than they were during the Cold War, when nearly everyone saw the value of foreign news. But after 9/11, foreign news is arguably more important than ever.

Fenton writes that journalists who want to become foreign correspondents are often treated as pariahs by their peers. It's like joining the Peace Corps - you're seen as lacking the smarts or ambition to make it big on Wall Street or in Hollywood.

Fenton argues that the media shouldn't just react to events as they occur. We should also anticipate future events and let the public know what's coming down the road. Sept. 11 was only the most famous example of our failure to do so. There are examples on the domestic front, too.

"Cutbacks, bottom-line fever, and CEO-mandated news criteria actually reinforce groupthink in mainstream news media in ways that can wildly distort the news," Fenton writes. He points to the "amazingly mistaken election-day exit polling by the networks in 2004, which initially indicated pro-Kerry outcomes. Why were they so uniformly wrong? Because they all got together and pooled their resources to cut costs, sharing the same polling companies when a little competitive reporting might have kept the networks on their toes."

Don't expect this to happen. Fenton complains that a "kind of herdlike laziness has infected the bloodstream of mainstream news organizations. It runs so deep, they don't even know it's there. No one gets fired for saying the obvious. Conventional wisdom dominates, and few news executives question received wisdom."

We're also failing to keep readers informed about other ongoing stories. Take the John Roberts story. The White House has declared the judge's background off-limits to scrutiny. Did you know Roberts belonged to the Federalist Society, a group of right-wing attorneys who want to rewrite laws to turn America into an ultra-conservative theocracy? (Roberts now claims he doesn't remember belonging to the group.) Or that Roberts' wife sits on the board of an anti-abortion organization?

You probably haven't received this news from the passive mainstream news media, which go out of their way to avoid offending the Bush administration.

How about the highly questionable voting procedures in Ohio last year? Read Mark Crispin Miller's article in the current issue of Harper's. He writes that the media have paid hardly any attention to the many reports of irregularities, except to to ridicule anyone who dares question the rightness of Bush's victory.

Of course, we're busy with much more important stories: Tom and Katie. Brad and Angelina. Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant. Runaway brides and missing girls - but only if the missing girls are young, white, attractive and preferably blonde.

And now, Nashville's favorite tabloid subject, Perry March, has returned from well-deserved oblivion to dominate the news. Once again, the Tennessee media demonstrate their endless fascination with the disappearance of a wealthy young white woman.

The media's real problem is not that they are too liberal or too conservative. It's that we're too bland, too boring and too trivial. Fenton's book might be a start in directing us back to substance and depth.

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Veteran TV reporter diagnoses 'Bad News'

Former CBS reporter Tom Fenton diagnoses television news in his new book, 'Bad News,' and the prognosis is not good.Fenton, who retired from the network last year, argues that the news media failed